The Night's Stars Update August 2020 · 7:43pm Aug 24th, 2020
As pointed out by The Unknown Twinkie, it’s been about two months since you’ve heard from me regarding The Night’s Stars.
Has it really been that long? Almost.
Right. Update below with minor spoilers.
I’m not sure where to start. My thoughts are rather scattered right now, so bear with me because this blog post will likewise be scattered.
I have about 16 chapters drafted. Sounds great, right? It is up until you, or in this case I consider that all of these chapters need heavy editing and or rewrites. Which I have not been doing over the past two months. Which means I have nothing edited for publishing. Likewise I’m not entirely sold on getting to work on this just yet. Which I will get to the reasons behind this shortly...
It took me a month to “draft” the second-to-last drafted chapter. It ended up being 20 ish thousand words long. And then I realized why it took so long to draft. It’s not a draft, it’s an amalgamation of scenes that’s more like freewriting than a proper chapter... which will require a gratuitous amount of work to fix. ...At least I have words to work with, I suppose. I know the main thing that I need in the chapter, but a lot of the other stuff can probably be dropped... but I don’t know where else it would go, since it doesn’t fit with other chapters... And perhaps the biggest issue with this chapter, and my relative lack of progress (or at least, lack of progress as I consider it) is that I feel like my heart isn’t in the story anymore.
It’s been almost two years, and I’ve not written the romance I had dreamed of. I am extremely disheartened by this. Even moreso considering that the story stands at about 600k words long, give or take (and keeping in mind the much needed edits), and I literally just wrote the chapter where they start dating last week. Or the week before that. I don’t remember now. Can you imagine my frustration and agitation? I have considered giving up many, many times. I don’t know if it’s worth it anymore, considering that my heart doesn’t seem to be in it. It’s a struggle.
The story feels repetitive, which is my own fault, and who knows, maybe that is just me or my point of view. I had a couple of friends read over a passage and both said it was good and yet I am unwilling to agree with them. Not enough detail or pizzaz. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself. I don’t know.
Another thing which has been pointed out to me and I am struggling to come to grips with is the fact that, well, a lot of things had to change (not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, it just contributes to the story’s length) for the romance to truly start. (Or, at the very least, it had to change to prevent it from being forced or having implications that I really didn’t want.) I’m not eager to go into details on this, though it might be obvious already, or will be once the chapters I have drafted are edited and published, what that means and where it leads to.
This is taking far longer than I expected and intended. This story is far bigger than I imagined, and I’m not convinced it’s a good thing, but I also don’t think I can truly speed that up without causing worse problems. So bear with me, I guess.
I need to get together with my prereader and start hammering away at the edits. Or, more accurately, I need to find the will to actually go back, reread the chapter, review his comments, and work on brute forcing the chapter into better shape. Maybe I’ll feel better once the edits are finished. I don’t know. I’m afraid I won’t. I’m afraid I won’t be able to improve the chapters properly. I’m afraid my heart will not go back into the story. I’m afraid that I have lost whatever skill I might have had at writing, or that I’ve lost my touch at writing. I’m finally reading something new after months of procrastination, and I’m trying to study it such that I might improve or reignite whatever spark I had for writing, but I feel as if I have made a mistake with the way I’m writing the story. Ex:
Nightmare Moon looked at Twilight and then ran her feathers over her student’s coat. “I do not think so,” she murmured.
She watched Twilight turn away from her, her student’s lips pressing into a thin line. “It feels that way, though,” her student mumbled.
(Not an actual excerpt; written on the spot to give an example of how clunky it feels to me.)
Likewise, I’ve had a lot of mood swings, and my emotions/mind have not been stable over the past several months. I do not want to go into details on this, other than an admission of being extremely demotivated and disillusioned when it comes to The Night’s Stars, to the point where I’ve considered quitting several times.
Anyway... I don’t know. Here’s your update. Here’s what I’ve been doing and failing to do. Any encouragement? Any condemnation? Comment below.
i enjoyed your story, ill wait as long as it takes
I like your story. Even if my mind is still in the gutter and everytime a certain feather meets a certain back it goes in a way different direction :P
Good to see the sinner here too :)
<waves and leaves a tray of brownies>
I love the story so far, and I look forward to it continuing. I also hope that you feel better, because I know what it’s like to be afraid and unmotivated like that and it absolutely sucks. Taking time away for that kind of stuff is perfectly reasonable.
As for the story itself, I will make no claims that I know how to be a writer, so I won’t say that my advice is definitely going to work or even be helpful in the slightest, but I have an idea nonetheless. If you don’t like how a chapter is going or think that it might be better some other way, then you could maybe do something similar to PonyPlays2014 in their story Studying (with) You and write out multiple ways the chapter could go, and publish whichever one you think is the best. Or this could just be something most writers already do and I’m just being dumb and wasting your time, so sorry if that’s the case.
While I agree that the initial part of the story (as in, a few tens of thousands of wards after the initial chapters—sound crazy, isn't it?) was a bit repetitive (not unenjoyable, though), I think that has been much better in the later chapters and things seem to be moving at a nice pace now. Of course, I do not know how the unpublished chapters look at the moment, but was has been published I think of as "perfectly fine."
If you want to focus more on the romance aspect and still feel a certain eagerness to write that part, you might want to see if you can find a good way of either dealing with the recently established revolutionaries in a quick way or move it into the background happenings of the story. You know, something that goes on in the background, mostly without the reader knowing about what happens and maybe only catching glimpses of it. They seem to be in somewhat of a need to gather allies and resources, which might give you (and our protagonists) a breather to deal with other stuff (like that romance part). And then they could simply pop up again at an (in-)opportune moment later.
Orion, while it is disheartening to watch a story go unfinished forever, it hurts way more for a reader to watch the author suffer trying to make something. Really, take care of yourself, you're way more important than a story, and if your heart isn't in it; while I won't lie, that is a bit sad, don't push yourself to write when it isn't making you happy. If you're not happy writing then I'm not happy reading. Take your time.
Hugs and encouraging smiles.
-Noobblue
maybe you need to take a break from this story. that's among the reasons I cycle through mine so I don't get stuck in a rut.
I can completely empathise with you here. I think it's less of a fault with you and me as writers and more one of the risks of writing long-form fanfiction. The story meanders, we realise that the scenes don't flow together as well as they should and so we add in bits and pieces here and there to make them. Next thing you know, the story is suddenly massive and you've set up so much that it feels impossible to go back to why you began writing the story in the first place.
Two years ago, I began writing a fanfiction that was basically going to be an alternate universe of a sequel to some random book series. It was going to be a small, fun thing. Now, it's a behemoth of 160k words (tiny compared to this, yes, but it was my first writing project even close to that length) and I haven't touched it for five months. Now, some of that is definitely due to covid stress, but most of it is just gecause going back to it at this point feels like it's sucking the soul out of my body like a dementor. It's so huge, so jam-packed full of filler that I don't even remember why it was I started it. To have fun? Sure, I was at some point, but not now.
I can also empathise with your feelings of clunkiness in your writing. When I sit down to write these days, nothing flows like it should. Reading what I've written before, I want to cringe out of existence. I think this is inevitable--as you mature as a writer, your past work suddenly begins to feel inferior. This is, again, more of a risk with long-form fanfiction since it's likely that said maturing will take place even as the author is still writing.
I think the best advice to give here is that you're trying to make it work, and... Speaking just from my personal experience, trying to make it work just won't work if you don't have a rythm. I remember being stuck on a sceme about eight months ago (at this point I'd already been contemplating dropping that fic. Actually, I've contemplated dropping the fic multiple times but each time I end up pulling back from the brink) and having no idea where to go and what to do. Everything I wrote seemed like hot garbage, everything I'd already written was slightly lukewarm garbage. So I thought about what I wanted to do.
I think the easiest way to get back into the groove is to try and write with a domino effect in mind. Like, maybe you switch points of view to Midnight, who's having a conversation with nightmare moon, which leads into a confession and the story starts to run away from you and suddenly you've got that rythm again. Or maybe you don't want to do that. Maybe it's time to be more deliberate and delicate, which is perfectly fine too. This is where all my "advice" breaks down, being a fairly young and inexperienced writer myself.
Ad for the points you make about your writing-I have read The Nights Stars seven times. It was at a stage in my life when I was kinda obsessed with reading as much MLP fanfiction as possible (hey, when you're a bibliophile in a rut for good reading material and find a veritable treasure trove with the only caveat being the characters are all ponies, you say thank you and start partaking) but I had very specific tastes. Like, I didn't like how I'm a lot of stories Nightmare Moon was just an evil baddie and Luna was two steps removed from her. They're the same person! Don't chicken out. And also portraying her and her sister's relationship as mistakes made on both sides. This story ticked all the boxes for me. Every time I was frustrated about a story I'd sunk 100k words into only to be disappointed, or unable to find good reading material, I came back here. Sure, it's a bit slow, but as far as I'm concerned that just makes the buildup better. It also meant that NM's transformation is portrayed as a massive struggle against her deeper instincts, due to how long it takes for her to concede even the tiniest bit. I don't think there's much that works to that s story's detriment. In fact, most of the prose has been utterly spectacular! So, what I'll say is this.
I can completely understand if you decide you need a break from this fic, or even if you decide to move on from it. That's entirely your prerogative. I do feel, however, that you're viewing everything about this s story through the exact opposite of rose tinted glasses. Sone of that has to do with just being an author, some of it is because you've spent two years on it and felt like you've gotten nowhere, but I don't think it accurately reflects what's happened in the story. NM has changed immensely. Her relationship with the people around her (not just twilight, but shining and Cadance too) has changed. The populace has come to at least tolerate, if not admire her-which is a step up from hating her from usurping their ruler. Twilight has changed too, as have her relationships with her friends. The friends (and spike) haven't changed much but hey, this story ain't about them! And I think the fact that this change took so long even for the reader highlights an important point that most other stories about NM don't- change takes time and effort, and a gargantuan amount of it. But the important bit is just taking those first few steps.
NM has taken those first few steps. So has Twilight. So has the populace. Big things can start happening,and it will feel like a perfectly natural progression because that's the true beauty of this story you've woven. You've laid the foundations so intricately, so beautifully, but now that they're set in stone you're not sure what to do now. There's (again) not much advice to offer here except maybe a "HEY, what's that saying again? They fell in love slowly, then all at once? Wait that's not it". My point being, at this point in the story, you could literally do anything because of the efforts you've put in over the past two years. You can do whatever the hell you want to at this point, and I don't think you realise that. Maybe take a step back and look at it all, it's stunning. Anyways, this is dangerously close to becoming a love letter and my finger is quite tired from tapping away at my phone (I wish I could use my laptop but I'd have to get out of bed and nooo) but anyways. Stay cool, my dude.
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Thank you for this comment. I was touched when I read it yesterday. You put a lot of effort into writing this (even more so since you wrote it out on a phone!), and it shows. I deeply appreciate this. It was heartwarming and encouraging. You’ve made a lot of good points and said a lot of things that I think I needed to hear or be reminded of.
I have tried to write the story with a perspective of, “What makes the most sense to happen next, given what has already happened?” so that it flows logically. The domino effect, as you put it. I have put my heart into the story, and I talked to one of my friends about the story last night. I still have so, so many plans that I want to bring to fruition with the story, ideas that I talked with him about. So many ideas that, I think, can weave together wonderfully into a good narrative. There are other ideas I’ve had to scrap: they were good ideas as well, but wouldn’t really fit with the overall narrative of The Night’s Stars. I’ve contemplated writing some of the scenes and perhaps publishing it as a scrapbook of sorts, as some insight into different ideas I’ve had for the story. Perhaps I’ll do that. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll write a blog post and include the opening scene of the next chapter. I experimented with it and would like more feedback on it... Perhaps I’ll write some short one-shot today or tomorrow for publishing sometime just for the sake of writing something different, yet similar, to get another idea out of my head.
Yesterday, because of your comment, I was encouraged to work on drafting another chapter (as it turns out, I miscounted; I only have ~14-15 chapters drafted) that I’ve thought of for a very long time. There were two different ideas I had for how it could end, and for the longest time I was thinking it would go one way, but I’ve realized over the past eight-ish months that it needs to go the other way for the story’s narrative and other reasons. I managed to write about 3,800 words yesterday, and I’m planning to work on it again later today. So thank you for this comment and the encouragement.
Reading The Night’s Stars, or what I have published of it, seven times? I can’t begin to imagine that. The most I’ve read a story over has probably been three to five times, and I can’t remember which story that would have been. There are several stories I’ve been meaning to reread but finding the motivation to is difficult...
From an author’s perspective or at least mine, when writing The Night’s Stars, Nightmare Moon is an interesting character. I’ve tried to make her have a certain depth to her, to humanize her, as it were. She’s not simply some one-dimensional villain, or at least I’ve tried to portray her beyond that. She’s deeply flawed and imperfect, and despite all her claims, as you said, Nightmare Moon and Luna are the same person. My friend made a comment either last night or the night before along the lines of, “Nightmare Moon and Luna are two sides of the same coin.” One problem I’ve been struggling to find an answer to is whether The Night’s Stars should have the Luna character tag or not. I tend to lean towards no, but still...
And likewise, as both you and my prereader have pointed out, Nightmare Moon has changed a lot over the course of the story’s narrative. She’s grown a lot, and she has a lot more growing to go through. As I said in the blog post, she had to change before the romance could be viable, and that change is hard and takes time. And while it’s frustrating how long it takes, you also make a good point that with how long the story is, it conveys a sense of how hard and long that road to changing is.
To quote or paraphrase something I had Nightmare Moon saying, whether it’s published or not, “A thousand years is not forgotten overnight.” A full year hasn’t even passed yet in the story with as much as I have written ahead, and I’ve struggled with how much she’s changed, worrying that it’s too fast, even with as long as the story is, because change takes time. Change takes will. And, as I said, “A thousand years is not forgotten overnight.”
But hey, I have a lot of the story’s plot figured out, and it’s just a matter of weaving it all together. I even have the ending figured out, and that ending is just a matter of, “Can I pull this off without breaking my legs on the ending like normal?” There are a couple of issues to work out for the ending, but I suppose I’ll work them out as I get closer to it.
Again, thank you for your comment.
5343213
I'm on my laptop now, so hopefully less typos. Hi!
I've had a lot of reviews inspire me into continuing the draft for the next chapter of my story, and I know how it feels to get like really long reviews too. It's kinda surreal being on the other side of the screen. All I can say is- hey, thanks! I'm glad to see that my tired ramblings helped. To be fair, you're providing us with so much incredible content for free, so it's the least us lot can do.
I have read the Night's Stars an immense amount of times, and I do think a lot of it can be chalked up to your portrayal of Nightmare Moon- which, as you mentioned, attempted to shy away from making her a one-dimensional villain while retaining her oftentimes cutthroat nature. I don't think I'd be wrong in saying there isn't anything quite like it on this site. And it's incredibly satisfying to see her actually learn as the story goes on, but not simply undergo a sudden transformation back into Luna and unbanish Celestia with no hard feelings. You're completely right in saying that "A thousand years aren't forgotten overnight.", and in the story they absolutely aren't. But (and I think this is something a lot of writers forget) Nightmare Moon was a war general and statistician (that's not the word, is it?). The point is, she's intelligent, and she knows when to concede. She's cunning and calculated. Blinded by anger, yes, but the instant she realizes her actions are detrimental to her position she resolves to change them. Of course, it took a fair bit of time for her to realize just how detrimental her actions were, but I do believe that both her bearing witness to her change's effect on Twilight and the general populace makes it perfectly believable that she's changed as much as she has, even in less than a year and even if it was (partially) out of spite for Celestia. Maybe it also has something to do with her evolving relationships with Twilight and Cadance and such, and wanting to do right by them. I'm not sure if I'm articulating this all that well. I should really stop writing reviews right before going to bed.
Regardless, the fact that you have the plot and the ending figured out is pretty damn cool! I do believe that you'll end up sticking the landing, despite your misgivings. In my experience, it's either incredibly easy to finish up the finer details as the plot draws to a close, or incredibly difficult. Hopefully for you it's the former. And you're welcome! Much obliged.
5343507
I apologize for not replying to you yesterday. I was caught up in doing things, finished drafting that new chapter, and then started feeling ill. I’m better today, though more sluggish.
I think I understand what you’re trying to get at. Also, I think the term you’re looking for, regarding Nightmare Moon, is tactician or strategist.
You seem to have a fairly good grasp on Nightmare’s character. I thought I’d have more to say about this paragraph but I guess I don’t without repeating what I said before.
Linking it all together to make it flow well is the problem, alongside the still-depressing lack of romance.
The biggest problem I foresee with the ending is setting it up so that it doesn’t feel like you, the readers, are being cheated, or that it’s forced/a cop out. Good luck, Twilight... you’re going to need it.
I’m tentatively planning on publishing a blog post later today. I wanted to reply to you before I did that, which is one of the reasons I didn’t post the blog yesterday. I suppose now I’m going to get on drafting another new chapter. I have a general vision for the chapter; perhaps it will work out without taking a month to freewrite.